The Enemy Inside Your Home Part 1

One reason for us to Jesus longer. Remember there is danger in your house with the click of a mouse. You and your kids can access Internet pornography on demand protecting your family from the evils of the technology we all need is a daunting task today. Guidance on doing just that. Please stay with the Moody Church in Chicago. This is when boots are whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line.

Estimates are with smart phones in every kids hand able to access the Internet from anywhere regarding our kids is getting really talk and you know, David. Not only is getting tough, but it is becoming difficult and almost impossible. Recently I spoke to a mother who said that I didn't realize that when I gave my 13-year-old daughter, a cell phone, I might as well have given her her first shot of heroin and I say to the parents today. We had all better wake up because it is social media is technology that is raising our children. And that's why they are growing up with a different set of attitudes in a different set of beliefs. I believe so strongly in this series of messages we'd like to be able to bless you in a way that will really be helpful for gift of any amount. These messages can be yours, either as CDs or DVDs and that comes with the study guide. You can discuss these issues in your home, you can discuss them with your friends or your small groups.

Here's what you do you go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 thanks in advance for helping us as we share the good news of the gospel with tens of thousands of people call us 1-888-218-9337 and now we go to the topic of the enemy inside your home. I want you to visualize for a moment that you tuck your children into bad to say good night to them and say your evening prayers with them and then you wake up in the morning and they're gone and intruder came through the window or through an open door and stole your children will of course what you would do is call the police and immediately after that. Of course you would organize neighborhood searches and all the rest of find your kids. You'd be desperate.

But what if I were to say to you that inside your home. There is a thief that is stealing the hearts of your children so you wake up in the morning and the kids are there to get them ready for school.

You interact with them, but their heart already is worshiping other gods. That's what's happening and oftentimes parents are accomplices to those other gods in the child's heart belongs somewhere else today I'm speaking on a very serious subject, as I always do, but I'm thinking particularly today's I speak about technology and the entertainment industry. This is a series of messages entitled fighting for your family and we do have to fight like never before.

We have never before had a society in which we have such things as the tablets the iPads the smart phones, Internet, television, all of these things, stealing the hearts of our young people and stealing the hearts of parents to.

That's why we have to address the subject but I have to warn you, we are going right into Satan's territory. This is where he rules. This is where he says this dominion is mine. I own this. That's why it's so important for us to be prayerful and the message that I'm speaking today is for you, but it's also for me every one of us have been affected by this.

I suppose in the thousands of people who are listening to this message and will listen to this message.

There are probably only a few that have not been affected by the entertainment industry the media that is out to steal our hearts so we must listen carefully, and even though we have prayed before. Already in this meeting. Could we pray one more time asking God for enlightenment and strength because we are speaking about a very formidable foe. Please join me as we pray father I ask that your Holy Spirit has been given to the church may be here to instruct to convict and to deliver because without your help, we are powerless we cast ourselves upon the strong name of Jesus. Amen.

I decided not to spend a lot of time telling you what the problem is the fact that this was 12 years ago. According to a survey, 80% of all children under the age of 17, obscene, R-rated movies and 25% said that they began to act out what they saw. I'm talking about the fact that it used to be that children were introduced to pornography at perhaps age 15 or 18. Now, the average age according to the statistics is about nine or 10. Where do we go from here. And so the question is what do we do remember this that all of the entertainment industry is looking for attic. They want addicts. The gaming industry says we need addicts who are hooked on gambling because they're the ones that pay for these casinos.

They are the ones who really pay our bills. We need addicts. The pornography industry says we need addicts. We need them in order to sustain our lifestyle and our great organization so Hefner's organization is looking for your sons. He is patrolling the waters to see if he can hook your boy so that he can have another addict to help finance the Empire.

That's where we are at the music industry.

The addiction to music to certain kinds of music to rap music, many of which have terrible lyrics, all of that is dedicated to this question.

How do we snare your child as early as possible and keep him all the way because he has to find what we are doing and that's what we are up against. Today I said that we don't do something couple of reasons. First of all because parents themselves may be paralyzed. It's personal paralysis.

Because you see if the parents themselves are intrigued and seduced by the entertainment industry, at whatever level it is very difficult for them to say to their children. You should do this thing of a man, for example, who subscribes to a Sports Illustrated and he was saying that when the swimsuit issue came he noticed his 12-year-old boy was very interested in the pictures but how does he, as a father, tell the boy only. You should be looking at that when the dad does. That's the question when people themselves are snared by the very thing that they'd like their children to not be a part of and so you have a personal paralysis. You also have another problem and that is denial. Somehow we know that this is huge. We know that we can hardly begin to attack it because it is so much a part of our lives and our children have bought into it so much.

But if we turn the other way. Maybe it will no longer be there and so what we do is we put our heads in the sand and then there's another reason we don't understand the nature of the spiritual conflict we don't understand that behind all these things as the Bible says their principalities and powers in this spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. We don't get that. Remember decades ago when Nancy Reagan told us regarding drugs. Just saying no a wonderful advice, but how do you just say no this past week I spent some time with a friend whose son has had those struggles with drugs.

How does he just say no when the euphoria and the desire and the appetite has been inflamed.

You don't have the power to say no to people don't understand that.

And often times our advice to them is very superficial.

A person in New York who was hooked on heroin said that heroin has a voice and when heroin calls. I must go, but so do all addictions have a voice and when those addictions called, we begin to obey them well today. What I'd like to do is to give you some criteria some tests for the media. How much of Hollywood should we let into our home.

How much of the media are we able to tolerate today I'm going to give you three tests and then I'm going to give you five imperatives things that had better be done this by the way is number seven in a series of messages entitled fighting for your family and how important it is that we fight for a family and regarding next time don't even think of being absent. Don't even think about because I'm going to be speaking about abuse in the home, and I do that because it is so widespread I'm shocked by what I read in the understanding of abuse that is taking place in our culture so you be sure to be here, but today three tests. Are you ready for the tests. Are you ready number one. Now I would like to refer and please take your Bible here in turn to first John chapter 2 I assume often that people know all these verses by memory. But you know maybe they don't. Maybe you've never memorize the sum first John chapter 2 verses 13 to 17 and this is the content test the content test.

First John two verse 15 and following do not love the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him for all that is in the world. The desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride and possessions is not from the father but is from the world and the world is passing away along with all of its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever don't have time to spend a lot of energy and discussion of these three expressions of the world, the lust of the flesh, the desires of the flesh elicits sensuality, which are everywhere on our internets in our iPads and as smart phones and elsewhere. All of these things available today and it's there, and they live billeting that makes it so seductive and so what you have is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes that has to do with covetousness can also include sexuality, but a lot of other things to because remember the whole advertising industry is based on covetousness if you didn't cover that they wouldn't have a job.

It's to make you dissatisfied with what you have and then tell you why you should have something else and then of course the pride of life, which is at the center of it all unacknowledged self absorption and remember it is on acknowledged it is on scene but it is there, the desire to be number one.

The desire well briefly the me generation. Now what does James say James and I'll give you the reference. After I read it, but listen to this. My dear friend today you adulterous people. James said do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God. Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy God friend of the world that you just think back over the television programs and over the entertainment industry and they are filled with what occultism sensuality and violence when you look at it.

It's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. That's what fuels the entertainment industry. By and large, with few exceptions, and you'll notice that whoever is a friend of the world. James says is in anomie of God. I don't want to be an enemy of God. I hope you don't either. Yet, if we befriend the world. That's what the text says because it was the world that nailed Jesus to the cross. It was sin, but suppose you were to come to home and there was a couple there and they had a a box in which they kept a knife. The glass case and they said we just want you to admire this knife.

Notice how symmetrical it is. Notice the perforation notice that it is stainless steel. It's about the right size. We admire this knife and we look at it for at least an hour a day so that's interesting. That's a little weird. What about this knife. I say well you know we had one son and an intruder broke into our home and he murdered her son and this is the knife that he while at really seems strange for sure, something's wrong when we admire sin. We admire the knife that killed Jesus because he died for us as sinners and therefore what we are doing is admiring what God he you see the depth of what James and John are really trying to tell us now if you were to use the content test for everything that you and I watched on TV are saw on other venues. We would soon discover that the swamp would be drained pretty quickly with the content test. There's a second test, and I refer to it and it is really the control test the control test pulses in first Corinthians 612 well actually read it there in the text.

First Corinthians 612 all things are lawful for me, but not all things are help. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything even if it passes the content test. The question is does it control you even those things that may be lawful, but maybe quite innocent. Are you able to control them you know someone is defined idolatry is that says idolatry is something within creation that is inflated to function as a substitute for God can be a person, an institution, an image or a pleasure. So what we have is all of these images and these pleasures and this euphoria and we set ourselves alignment charge.

Probably not the way in which you can discover whether or not you're in charge is simply this quit quit it for a week or two and see if you can.

You may discover you're not in charge at all. It is the illusion of being in charge. Years ago I told you that here at the water tower. We're in the store doing some shopping and there was a little kid that was in a little cart and that he was maybe 18 months or two years old and he was crying profusely and he had a little steering wheel on this little cart and he was just taking that steering wheel and turning it to the right with all that he had at the same time he was going to the left and the reason is because his mother was actually in charge and his steering wheel wasn't connected to anything that mattered. You say that you're in charge.

You see if you can do without it for a week or two and then you'll find out whether or not you are in charge. What we must hurry on. There is 1/3 test we have the content test the control test as you might've guessed, I decided to have the other one.

Also, SC, and it is the clock test all simply put, the verse Ephesians 515 it says redeeming the time now. Modern translation say making the best time. I like the literal translation redeeming the time, because the days are evil. How evil with the days have to get in order for you to redeem the time, the imagery there is to buy that time out of the marketplace because you have all of these pressures for your time and if you're going to take time for God and time for serving God, you're gonna have to buy that time out of a whole host of various issues and pressures and opportunities you by the time redeem it now. Simple fact is that often times we think to ourselves that were making an investment. You know you're acquainted with. Our goal return on your investment. Let's suppose that you watch television two hours a day that so what is it 700 hours a year and then you can begin to multiply that you multiplied by 10. I think you get around 7000 as I frequently say when it comes to arithmetic I'm always say hello long as I'm right 90% of the time. I mean who cares about the other 5%. So about 7000 over 10 years now that's quite an investment of time. What's your ROI.

What's your return on your investment doesn't make you a better person. Are you walking more closely with God, you have more information now that really helps you in the journey of life is that your rate of return. Just yesterday I received an email from someone who told me that about someone I had met once who died of cancer, but apparently his wife said that for the last year's all that he did was basically watch television. Can you imagine standing before Jesus and Jesus saying well done, thou good and faithful servant. For thou has listened to 10,465 hours of television enter into the joy of my Lord, I think, for example, seniors at they sometimes waste so much time watching TV watching this and that when when they have they have so many years of productivity long time ago I read about a woman who was so fed up watching television, and there she was in a senior home and she decided to connect with the church and to get the names of all of their missionaries and she began to write missionary letters to 70 different missionaries, not seven but 70 and began to get interested in their lives and praying for them and she live productive of late until the day she died. What's your our old return on your investment. Now I don't want to get too spiritual here, but since I'm on a roll and that is will continue in the direction that I'm going is very convicting to me and I hope it's convicting to you what is it about the entertainment industry that is so important to us meeting certain needs in our lives that apparently God is unable to meet what about the pleasures of God on God's right hand, are they not significant. You see, we are so far from the idea of pursuing God this past week I was reading in the book of Isaiah where it says seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him when he is near. Let the wicked man forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord, I thought, isn't it too bad that in our hurried life most of us don't know what it is like to really see God and find him satisfying it was CS Lewis who said that God is the all satisfying object busy or is he not know what that what I'd like to do is to give you five imperatives you can write these down. I see this is essential each one could be an individual message but here we go number one. What we must do is to recognize the spiritual nature of the conflict to recognize the spiritual nature of the conflict as the apostle Paul says in the book of Ephesians we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the rulers of this age. That's what we are really up against and that's why it is that were so paralyzed in the face of so much misuse of technology will my friend, you certainly have to listen to the next broadcast of running to win to find out what the other points are each of them is very very important and perhaps you've heard me say this before, but I believe that this series of messages is surely one of the most important I've ever preached. It's your opportunity to deal with issues with in your home to do so biblically and you know for a gift of any amount. These messages can be yours, either as DVDs or CDs in either way, they come with the study guide so that you can use it in discussion at a time when everything that is been nailed down is being torn up. We need guidance from the Scriptures connect with us here is what you do go to RTW offer.com that's RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 ask for the DVDs or CDs of fighting for your family.

As I've mentioned before, it comes with the study guide RTW offer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Let me remind you that this ministry continues because of people like you joining the running to win family and becoming a part of what we do is we share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

With so many.

My heart is filled with gratitude for you. Praying for you, for your families and for the strengthening of the body of Jesus Christ, you can write to us at running to win 1635 N. LaSalle Boulevard Chicago, IL 60614 running to win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life in the old days people would sit and talk. Now they stare at an HDTV or into a computer screen technology so valuable as a tool of the enemy would get all of us and steal time better use for each other and for God. Next time on running to win more on this danger. Thanks for listening for Dr. Erwin Luzerne this is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the teacher